


Hidden by Time (Main Story)

by RedJLP



Series: Hidden By Time [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF, Star Wars - All Media Types, World Rally Championship RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-06-01 02:08:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15132731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedJLP/pseuds/RedJLP
Summary: What happens when an Assassin is forced to walk this Earth for all of eternity? Will he cope with being one of a rare few? Does he consider this a gift or a curse?An AU starring an original character who comes back to life almost if not immediately after death. The timeline will cover multiple time periods with some spanning multiple chapters considering the story I have in mind is crazy long. With all that said, I will be editing the tags as the project develops, adding what I will (including other fandoms that have been included) to prevent spoilers for future chapters' stories (as such, you should probably move to the furthest chapter along if you see a tag that interests you be added with it) and hope you enjoy.





	1. Humble Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rage_quitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rage_quitter/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Vagabond: Origins](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4165644) by [rage_quitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rage_quitter/pseuds/rage_quitter). 



> A lot of people deserve my thanks. First of all, the Organization for Transformative Works for founding the Archive and granting not just me, but so many people the opportunity to express their creativity through fan labour.
> 
> Secondly, rage_quitter on the Archive for coming up with the basis for this. I will abide by the rules laid out on the homepage and each chapter will release one week after the last unless times demand otherwise. Links: (original AU homepage) http://immortal-fahc.tumblr.com (Archive profile) https://archiveofourown.org/users/rage_quitter/pseuds/rage_quitter 
> 
> Finally and third of all, all the creators and owners of all the intellectual properties used or at least referenced. I own the rights to none of them and the plot points of my own creation will try to not conflict too much with the canonical plot points in any of them. Keep in mind that these are all that I intend to include and I may not be able to implement them as I want and as such, you’re more than welcome to submit plot points to help me do so. For every individual chapter, I will only state the IPs used in said chapter after its beginning notes in a similar fashion to this, but here I will list all I intend to include and they are as follows:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created, developed, published and distributed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co and 20th Century Fox for Walt Disney Enterprises Inc  
> Harry Potter created by J.K. Rowling and distributed by (books) Bloomsbury Publishing Co Ltd (movies) Warner Bros  
> The World Rally Championship owned and operated by the Federation for International Autosports  
> Colin McRae Rally/DiRT owned, created, developed, published and distributed by Codemasters  
> Grand Theft Auto owned, created and developed by Rockstar North, published by Rockstar Games Inc, distributed by Take-Two Interactive Software Inc  
> Bakugan Battle Brawlers TV series, toys and characters created and owned by Spin Master  
> Need for Speed is a property of Electronic Arts Inc, developed by Black Box and Ghost  
> Driver owned, created and developed by Reflections Interactive, published and distributed by GT Interactive, Atari, SA and Ubisoft  
> Stuntman created by Reflections Interactive, developed by Reflections Interactive and Paradigm Entertainment, published and distributed by Atari, SA and THQ Nordic AB  
> Rooster Teeth Productions LLC. and its subsidiaries own their respective characters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The year is 1257. The Brotherhood has been provided with a glory age that they at this time found very rare. The children in Assassin families were quickly introduced to life in their ancestor's footsteps, so is the case for that of Altair Ibn-la'Ahad's number two, Malik Al-Sayf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That may not be as much of an introduction that may be necessary, but I wanted a much better one to be in the story itself. That being said, I will only be starting with use of only one IP as an influence aside from the AH Immortals.  
> Assassin's Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft

Born into the Brotherhood. Hearing this phrase was commonplace when I was young. We resided in the town of Masyaf and operated from the overlooking fortress. When Altaïr succeeded Al Mualim as Mentor of the Brotherhood, he was more supportive of the idea of family. That is how my generation came to be Assassins. Tales of when Altaïr came out of retirement to restore the Brotherhood to its former glory after his childhood friend turned rival, Abbas Sofian had staged a coup to take leadership from him were the favourite stories of my father, Malik Al-Sayf the Younger (publicly appearing as Tazim), one of the many who had a first hand experience in aiding him. I was named for his deceased uncle, Kadar. If only he knew how grand of an adventure I would soon embark on, whether I liked it or not. 

It all started in the year 1257 when a Mongol horde was attacking Masyaf proper. At this point I was 21 years old and was trained personally by my father and from age 11 onwards by formal instructors in the true ways of the Assassins, ideologically and mentally then, physically now. I was to defend the villagers while they retreated to safe areas. Me and my team stood valiantly, striking at least two each by attacking with our Hidden Blades from above and drawing our swords to face many more. For the most part, the defence was a success as we (joined close to the end by an elderly Altaïr escorting the explorers Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, wielding an artefact described in my father’s stories as a “Piece of Eden”, more specifically one called the Apple) were able to hold the Mongols off long enough for the innocent to get to safety and the structure of the castle was never sufficiently breached to do substantial damage to our resources or morale/belief in the Creed, but we suffered several casualties and many more injuries to achieve this victory. Case in point, I was pierced by a hostile arrow in the abdomen and bleeding fast. Though my team rushed me to a medic as fast as they could, there was nothing I could do to keep myself from passing out.

When I came to, I was outside my family house and nobody seemed to be around. I let out a sigh of relief and head inside thinking that the whole affair with the Mongol attack was a dream. As I entered, my mother jumped up and said “Kadar! Thank goodness you’re not dead.” 

“Why would I be dead, Mother?” I asked. Whatever state she was in seemed to wear off quickly as she was able to gather herself sufficiently to say “I heard what happened after the attack. You passed out on your way to hospital yesterday afternoon and earlier this morning, a guard reported hearing an unusually strong wind blowing inside your room. When he said that is was a mound of dust blowing out the window from your empty bed, we feared the worst.” This and me looking down at where the arrow originally struck to find a bloody tear in the fabric of my robes confirmed in my mind that the siege was no dream but now what was confusing me was that I had regained consciousness outside my mother's residence without so much as one drop of blood erupting from the wound that had not already, nor pain in that general area. 

Nobody, not even the finest medics in Masyaf were able to explain my condition but what they didn’t know what that shortly if not immediately after I first came to, the arrow wound had healed. When I went to bed that night, I noticed a silvery scar where the wound was supposed to be. When I asked about this, the issue came up about a rumor that lead to a myth about a wandering god. I enquired for details, and so learned about a man who’s soul, some say, “hadn’t passed onto the path to the afterlife and remained in this plain, creating a new body that never aged for centuries.” It then made sense when the discussion steered towards said man covering his face and only ever using a knife as a weapon that was not his bare fists. So absurd was the idea that it caused me to wander the streets of Jerusalem in denial, checking into the local bureau at least once a month to make sure I didn’t miss the majority of major jobs. Because of this, only I and the man behind the desk there noticed that my body did indeed not age, making me the perfect candidate for missions that require the utmost agility, though this was not always the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the end notes of every chapter including this one, I will leave all the Easter Eggs, references, influences and overall fun facts woven into this written work, despite most of the IPs in my list having some visual and that my YouTube audience might know that I would much rather be a visual storyteller. Now to the actual Easter Eggs.  
> Firstly, while the fact that Malik had a child named after him was never described outside of the novelisations of the games, Abbas' attempt at a coup should be known to those who have completed 4 of the 5 Altaïr missions in Assassin's Creed Revelations. The last one is the setting for the primary events of the chapter. Despite Altaïr using the Apple to summon Assassin apparitions to fight in an effort to minimise casualties in the game, it's not a stretch to say that in some cases the real thing was necessary (considering that he was accompanied by his son, Darim), let alone that Malik Jr./Tazim had a child himself, considering the time period (unless I got his DOB wrong). 
> 
> Lastly, the myth about the wandering god was something rage_quitter explained had been created out of Ryan Haywood walking the earth since the fall of the Roman Empire. If you haven't read the original AH Immortals works, he fought with Romulus and Remus to overthrow a dictator and establish what would become Rome. This battle, much like the depicted Siege of Masyaf, would be the first time he died and much like Kadar, he returns to life with a silvery scar over the fatal wound and would live to see all of known history. The actual AH Immortals stories, since they focus on their origins and then their antics in the world of GTA V, never goes any further forward in time than modern days, so if you want me to explore Halo or Titanfall, all I'll have to go off of is the actual Lets Play videos if I wish to introduce the AH lads to them. That said, my focus is currently on keeping Kadar close to big events from the main series Assassin's Creed games up until Unity. I made the conscious decision to leave out Syndicate for reasons you will learn then. At that point, I will begin exploring more fantasy elements from other sources. I won't spoil anything for anyone new who may wish to proceed, but even if it may make Kadar much more overpowered than a boss battle, the respective sources have provided rules to stick to that things don't get too out of hand.


	2. Templar Downfall?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The medieval age has almost concluded and the Templars have been exposed. After returning from the clutches of death for the very first time, Kadar Al-Sayf the Younger has been in denial. Eventually, he brings himself to his senses sufficiently enough to receive his biggest assignment yet, one that takes him across the sea.
> 
> If you have come from my YouTube channel or are otherwise new, I welcome you and if you're interested in heading over there the link is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1MkzbV8RzwXSUbqUILFChw  
> I'm doing some Let's Play projects that tie into some the intellectual properties I am using/intend to use there.  
> If you've come from Chapter 1, I thank you for staying tuned and suggest you get the word out as the story has only just begun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who want to know when I will be adding another IP to the pool of influences, Star Wars is coming. What I will say now is that I'm in the process of writing how Kadar will get a lightsabre and a way to simulate Force abilities. I will also say that after he gets them, he does not actively train in using them until 1977, when A New Hope first came out in the real world as I want to make references to not only the IPs listed in Chapter 1, but real life events that have actually happened and real people that actually exist(ed) [While this came naturally as the first IP I chose to explore was Assassin's Creed, there are real people from the modern time that I want Kadar to meet, yet not as Kadar]. That being said, that will not come into play this chapter so the list of IPs used so far are just as follows:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft

In 1305, I set sail for Europe and by September of 1307 had arrived in Paris with orders to join a team of French Assassins lead by Thomas de Carneillon who was assigned by King Philip IV to attack the Parisian Templar stronghold referred to as simply “the Temple” and arrest several certain high ranking individuals stationed there including French Grand Master Jacques de Moley. All infantry and unspecified targets we could do with as we wished and often that meant that they were going to die then and there. When we got there, we had to wait for a man named Floyrac and the force he would contribute before making our move. Until then, we were to get disguises that helped us get into character with their allies. After searching for the attire of Flemish mercenaries to be used, the Assassin portion of the force was informed that de Carneillon was going to take advantage of the major amount of attention necessary for the Templars to fend the attack off and infiltrate the Temple itself searching for Templar texts and a weapon with similar origin to the Apple.

Come October the tenth and Floyrac had arrived with his men and in three days they were ready. With all the preparations in place, I ran to the designated martialling area outside the front gate. As this mission was of a rare find due to the nature of our missions usually involving sneaking up on and then stabbing the target, I seemed relatively enthusiastic while maintaining my calm composure. Just after sunset, the mission was to begin. After Floyrac presented the documents needed to gain entry (which contained the warrant for de Moley's arrest), the passage was opened and he who opened it was promptly backstabbed (literally, despite not being coined yet) leading to the Templar infantry promptly taking up arms as expected. As the battle began I caught sight of a high ranking Templar making a break for the keep and in my mind I thought for a split second that I should cut him off and give de Carneillon more time on the off chance that this man was to cut him off from his true mission but this distracted me from the knight I was clashing swords with and when one mistake was made on my part, his sword went through the front of my chest and out the back.

I didn’t know how long I was like that, but what I did know was that if I do have the ability to come back, I would re-enter the battle, revert to the usual sneaking and stabbing techniques and speak little of this miracle or curse if you look at it from a certain point of view if it wasn’t a stretch to say that this was unlimited but I highly doubted my chances. After all, ancient myths described gods who could restore life into mortal beings, but this usually only ever happened once per person. And yet, when I awoke in the supposed afterlife, it looked strangely like the Temple and just as dim as the time I died. I decided to go through with my plan but just as I was walking back to the Temple, I noticed some of the men that Floyrac brought had de Moley under arrest and were escorting him to his trial, indicating success.

The next few years involved nothing but politics in big events. Pope Clement V dissolved the public face of the Templar Order, de Moley was tortured until he confessed his order guilty of the charges levelled against them by French Mentor Guillaume de Nogaret (who publicly served as advisor to the King) and inevitably he faced execution by burning. What he said before the flames consumed him troubled any Assassin who decided to attend, myself included. When he cursed the King to “the thirteenth generation of [his] blood”, it seemed that he had saved the Templar Order by somehow following our example and hiding it from the public eye. When the news reached de Nogaret, he knew that despite the end of the Templars’ public face, this fight was far from over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter revolves around the prologue mission of Assassin's Creed: Unity which introduced the Sword of Eden as the artefact that Thomas de Carneillon was after, but the unnamed Templar that Kadar considered pursuing beat him to it and was able to hide both it and Templar texts before de Carneillon was able to kill him. That Jacques de Molay was a Sage was not very important at this time, despite the concept of Sages gaining in importance later in the timeline. All the referenced facts that weren't stated in the games but confirmed to be canon by external media were verified on the AC Wiki. There, you can find which piece of external media was the one to confirm it.


	3. A Different Assignment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the attack on the Temple, the Templars seem finished and while their public face died with Jacques de Moley, believers in their cause still need to be eradicated and stopped before they can put their plans into motion.
> 
> You may have noticed that I have produced this chapter ahead of schedule. The thing is that I have had it ready for a day or so and I won't likely be anywhere near a computer when I should be getting a chapter ready. As such, you can experience Kadar's latest exploits earlier. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have finally figured it out! I have figured out how to get Kadar a way to simulate the Force, bringing Star Wars in. However, like I said, there will be no reason to introduce this concept until it has been introduced in the movies, first released in 1977. I intend to release these in chronological order, similar to the original AH Immortals texts and that they only make sense in that order. Once I get to that point, I will be taking requests for new IPs to add to the list that for now remains as small as this:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft

Despite many an opportunity to return to Syria, let alone stay with our French brothers, I knew that my last body had to have been counted among the casualties of the raid and so was forced to look for other things to do. So that I would still benefit the Assassins in some way and had a public face that was not extremely conspicuous, I chose to work as a cartographer who explored different places to unlock the secrets of the known world. I restricted myself to that as I wanted the discovery of any potential new land to be left to the actual explorers. In doing so I would follow up leads on any sites that may be related to the Pieces of Eden or their creators, a race we would simply call “Those who Came Before”.

These actions had consequences, however. In the shadows, the Templar Order survived as we feared. When this work began, it alerted them of the power that these artefacts possessed. Though men such as Robert de Sable have acknowledged their power and proposed that the Templar Order make finding and controlling as many as possible in the past, it was the rumours that I pursued that solidified the belief that using them to control the hearts and minds of the people around was the fastest way to achieve the Templar goal. As such, their various resources allowed the Templars to reach the sites first and begin work unearthing the site.

One of these times that this was the case, they had left behind enough scaffolding for me to up high and still be hidden as long as I kept to the shadows. As expected, the Templars were smart enough not to leave their excavation site unguarded so I considered myself prepared as part of my base exploration pack was a Hidden Blade and my sword, though I only needed my Hidden Blade at this point as I had not yet been detected. I had to continue like that for another 2-3 miles, hiding from and then dispatching a guard every so often. By numbers, I had to deal with about 5-8 guards per mile traversed making for a rough total of a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 24 guards slain before reaching the end of the mine where the Templar treasure awaited both those who started the excavation and he who shortened their forces. 

When I reached the end, they had reached a gate that was difficult to open and they seemed impatient to find what was inside. You could say this was always the case, but it was more so here. As such, I had no opportunity to approach while maintaining the element of surprise but I did have a few smoke grenades to disorient and blind anyone in the explosion radius. I threw it in the middle of the group and estimated that I had 10 seconds to silence as many of them as I could. I was able to eliminate 5 of the 15 there before the smoke cleared and I had to draw my sword. I can’t exactly remember the details but I died at least once and after taking care of the people problem, had a bit of parkouring (a term that has not been used yet) to do to reach a pedestal and open the door. Inside, I found a statue of a curious being. It looked similar to a human but a foot or so taller with a slightly larger head. On his finger, it bore a ring, one with markings similar to a Piece of Eden but none were this portable. In the other hand, was a curious cylindrical metal object. I could not make heads or tails of either of them so concluded that if my eternal life had no limits in that my youth could never not be and that I could come back to life at the drop of a nail, someone could eventually turn them into something I could understand or be taught to. I didn’t have to wait long for an ingenious mind to make itself known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of taking advantage of an already in progress excavation to search for and bring to the surface a Piece of Eden has appeared twice in the Assassin's Creed games. First in Revelations when Ezio has to do some puzzle solving to acquire the memory seals that act as the keys to Altair's library and second in Dead Kings, an expansion for AC Unity in which Arno Dorian steals an Apple of Eden from under the noses of Raiders under the employ of Napoleon. I suppose I take more influence from Revelations as the statue is clearly of an Isu, better known to us as one of the Precursor Race. That being said, the having to reach a pedestal at the top of the final chamber to open it is the same way to get into chamber comtaining the lantern that housed Arno's Apple. I won't spoil the importance of the ring but I will say that the cylinder will be what will become Kadar's lightsabre.


	4. A Major Upgrade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After going through all his notes, Kadar concluded that with the treasures he acquired from the ancient vaults now mostly donated to the closest branch of the Brotherhood, the time had now come to return to duty. The question was when and where would he receive his next big assignment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been contemplating adding certain more IPs to the list, but as I have stated before, I will only implement them when I have a solid grasp of a story to follow. That being said, I finally have taken one name from the list and introduced it properly and the up-to-date list is as follows:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co. and 20th Century Fox for Disney Enterprises Inc.

Finally, in the late 1400s an Assassin presence was starting to become necessary. In the Italian province of Toscana, I learned that the mercenary unit stationed there as the City Guard and military force of Monteriggioni were under the commission of Mario Auditore, who inherited the villa overlooking the town. Seeing an opportunity to bring myself back into active duty, I was quick to enlist into the group asking for a lower cut of the take as my loyalty to the Assassin cause was more compelling than money and no doubt Messere Auditore had heard of his Assassin bloodline, its legacy and had taken the Creed and its promises up with great enthusiasm. I had explored Italia in the past in my treasure hunting days and learned enough of the language to understand what they were talking about concerning rumours, but here I took it up splendidly and I quickly became comfortable. 

My time table for the time being seemed to be to defend from the nearby city of Firenze one year and then resupply it the next, but just as it seemed to be getting repetitive and thus boring not being assigned to actual Assassin work, reports of Mario’s brother Giovanni and almost all other men living under his roof being sent to the gallows causing the one survivor, Giovanni’s second son Ezio to swear vengeance against those involved starting with the murder of the most direct, Gonfaloniere Uberto Alberti started to filter through to Monteriggioni. These were confirmed when Mario took me and some others to aid Ezio in two showdowns with Vieri de Pazzi, one of three in his family who directly associate and affiliate with the Roman rite of the now resurgent (albeit not as publicly as before) Templar order and its Grand Master, Rodrigo Borgia. The first occasion sadly bore no fruit, but some time later, when we ambushed him and his men in the town of San Gimignano, we provided enough of a diversion for his forces to not notice Ezio rush up the tower Vieri commanded from to confront his old rival who’s blood flowed down.

This generated a spur of new opportunities in an effort to aid Ezio as he from then on took on not only the banking business that was his father’s public face, but also the duty of his ancestors before him and promote peace in all things the Assassin way. One of his targets had to be rushed by my unit and I was able to learn directly from the man should I choose to begin active duty with the Italian Brotherhood and return to work as a true Assassin. Eventually my immortal secret was discovered by Mario who was quick to persuade the current Mentor, Niccolò Machiavelli to enlist me in full, though it would stay between high ranking officers such as brothel owners Paola and Teodora, thieves La Volpe and Antonio, mercenary leaders Mario and Bartolomeo D’Alviano and active Assassins Machiavelli and eventually Ezio Auditore. 

During this time, it had become clear that some of Ezio’s newest gear had been sourced, constructed and/or repaired by Leonardo da Vinci. When I asked how this would be, I discovered him to be an old friend of his family and an aid to the Brotherhood with upgrades. He was clearly the man to go to if I wanted to learn what was unique about the ring and cylinder I found in the context of its kind of technology. I approached him (having gotten his address in Venezia from Antonio) and questioned him. His answer was “This seems similar to another object that was brought to me by Machiavelli in that it is made of metals that should not exist and still seems to be in working order and is extremely advanced, despite its age.” I expressed my thoughts that this one might be possible to crack open and while it took some time, he was able to take one half of the rounded edge of the cylinder and in the reports he left when he gave them back, he noticed that things seemed to get closer to the ring and others farther. All over the writings was the word “kyber”. It was implied to be his name for the kind of crystal that made the ring’s gem and the core of the cylinder which he found to be something similar to a sword but made out of light which came out of the cylinder itself at the flick of a switch, which made it very light to carry and swing. I chose to save this for when I needed it the most and while the power of the ring was going to be extremely useful when perfected, this would take time. Nevertheless, I had plenty of time before the next big happening.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first few paragraphs revolve around the background missions of Assassin's Creed 2 used for gameplay purposes to get the player comfortable with how the game worked and for narrative purposes to express that protagonist Ezio lived a very happy life prior to his involvement with the Assassins. Referencing such events continues up till the raid on San Gimignano in which Ezio killed Vieri de Pazzi. As for the final paragraph, those who keep up to date with the current Star Wars canon know that a kyber crystal powers a Jedi's lightsabre. If you guys haven't caught on, I was implying that one of the artefacts discovered in the previous chapter was indeed a lightsabre and considering that Star Wars famously takes place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...." and that footage of the time of the Isu shows us that they wielded blasters, it's not too much of a stretch to imply that another weapon of their choice could easily be a lightsabre. Of course this could easily be me talking out my behind and have no relation to the canon, but I thought it would be fun to include a bit of a theory at the end of these Easter Eggs.


	5. Reaction after Reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a new station, Kadar settles himself into Renaissance Italy taking the occasional job for the Assassins and finding rooms in other cities that require his attention. This keeps him busy for the remainder of the 1400s. As for the 1500s, chaos signalled their beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Similar to how it spanned two games officially, this second chapter is sadly the last in chronological order in which we will see the Renaissance. If you guys have any suggestions for plot points that happened during this time period, especially if it involves incorporating a new IP that is not on my list from the beginning, be sure to leave them below. That being said, it will be a while until the existing list grows beyond this:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co. and 20th Century Fox for Disney Enterprises Inc.

On January the 2nd, 1500, the ground shook and when the men got to their stations it dawned on us that the Borgia threat was far from over. We had heard days before that Ezio had gone to Il Vaticano where he determined a vault rumoured to harbour God himself was hidden. Having been aware that Pope Alexander VI was none other than Rodrigo Borgia himself made me sure that either the Papal Staff had something to do with the vault or he had strayed from his order’s purpose and sought only power for the prestige of having it. Either way, Ezio was motivated to finish what he started and made his way home, clearly victorious, so why were the Papal Armies attacking, hiding their presence till now by unknown means? It was obvious that Rodrigo was going to start a family and imbue them with the Templar way of life so either they sought vengeance for their recently deceased father or the father was not as deceased as we might have thought and/or hoped.

That they were able to not alert anyone of their presence was beyond anyone, especially when you saw the artillery they had. The threat was clearly major and despite an array of cannon defences being installed very recently, they were the only means of destroying those monsters. Countless casualties from both sides (but mainly ours) later, the Papal militia was down 35 mortars and (though some may have already unloaded their cargo) 8 siege towers. The battle had bought enough time for the townspeople to reach safety but at a terrible price and it was only going to get worse. I could tell the moment the front gates were breached and Mario sauntered through before collapsing to the ground, crippled and above him stood the man who coordinated the attack, son of the Pope and Captain-General of his army, Cesare Borgia accompanied by his sister, Lucrezia, his generals, Juan Borgia the Elder, Baron Octavian de Valois, Micheletto Corella, a contingent of his men and a captive Countess of Forli, Caterina Sforza. 

The last moments of the battle were played out in slow motion. Claiming that there had been too much bloodshed between the Auditore and the Borgia, Cesare brought out a wheel-lock firearm and aimed it at Mario’s head as an invitation for the Assassins to confront the Templars at the centre of their rule, Roma.  The last thing I heard were three series of gunshots. One from Cesare for Mario, one for Ezio and one for me. Thankfully, I awoke from my sleep of the dead outside the walls of the city and far from any Borgia soldiers. I only really had the time to prepare sufficient enough tools to combat only a few soldiers at once (but thankfully I had enough to grab the cylinder and ring) and the state that I found myself in seemed to reflect that. Indeed, the were the exact same simple set of robes and equipment that I went in with. I had grown accustomed to this and seeing the same bloodstains and tears in the fabric, but something I noticed previously happened again. When I looked at my actual body, the silvery scar from the arrow wound from Masyaf was still there, but no more. Not even immediately after the supposed killing blow. The same seemed to happen after every wound since that first one. But I had no time to waste philosophising, a major confrontation between Assassins and Templars in Roma was imminent and we needed as many hands on deck as possible, so there was no way around it or other option. Roma was calling and so I had to go, but before that time came, I had to prepare. This time I searched the ruined town for anything that might be useful as the Templars no doubt considered that to be the end of the battle. I was only able to recover the basic standard-issue tools that I was unable to grab in my haste to enter the battle and a horse as the stables seemed relatively untouched.

When I arrived in Roma, the situation was clearly dire. As I wandered the city streets, the majority of their denizens were living in fear, poor and starving, the guard was corrupt and ruthless, and the city was in a state of decay. This was to be the fate of a world under Templar rule, something that no other city should endure. The first thing I did was relocate to the new Assassin headquarters on Isola Tiberina and set up at least a temporary residence. I was left some funds to do so by Machiavelli when I checked in, something he claimed to have pulled from a bank that Ezio held a share in. Speaking of which, I proved a valuable scout for properties for Ezio to either purchase a controlling stake in for a division of the Brotherhood (as was the case for the inn La Volpe Addormentata that the namesake converted into the public face for a base of thieves’ guild operations [including rigging wagers set by gambling Borgia guards against them] and the Rosa in Fiore brothel [his sister Claudia put that money into renovating the building and making it popular]) or if it were a base of Borgia operations spouting their propaganda, to storm. 

As Ezio’s influence grew, the Borgia influence depleted to the point where he had opportunities to take out Juan Borgia (Cesare’s personal Banker), Baron de Valois (captain of his French allies) and set Caterina Sforza free, all of which were successful. While all these efforts were successful, they did require a bit of aid and without informing Ezio, Machiavelli sent me and a team to detonate the ordinance reserves in the Borgia stronghold at the Castel sant'Angelo thus diverting enough attention from him that he and Madonna Sforza would get away unnoticed, though I had to set the explosives off manually. Surprisingly, when I returned to life, I noticed that my gear was relatively unscathed. I was expecting my things to be totally destroyed, even the ring, which after discussing it with da Vinci, I kept on my finger at all times. 

Despite this, I needed none of my current items for my next assignment. Ezio had lost an Apple of Eden to the Templars during the Siege of Monteriggioni and was looking for a way to break back into the Castel and find it. He discovered that a man who had an affair with Lucrezia Borgia, Pietro, held a key that grant him access, but first he had to win his trust. At the Coliseum he called on me to assemble a team to make his planned move. While gathering information about Pietro, he discovered that he was an actor who was at the Coliseum for a play in which he was cast as Christ. Also there was Micheletto Corella which meant that Cesare had discovered his affair with Lucrezia or some other reason to explain him or someone around the area being marked for death and Cesare not wanting the mission to fail. Despite this, Ezio found us costumes so that we could be more convincing when we act like actors as a way for us to get close to Micheletto and stop the murder. But when Ezio jumped him as he was making a go for his target, he confessed that Pietro had taken a sip from poisoned wine moments ago. Quickly we rushed to Ezio’s defence as Borgia guards rushed in from all sides. I found the pike that came with the costume more effective but less comfortable so when I came out of this mission, I was happy to discard it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we come to the aftermath of Assassin's Creed 2 and the first few chapters that bridged the gap to Brotherhood including the Siege of Monteriggioni (with accurate numbers from the AC Wiki) where Cesare Borgia lead the Papal forces against the Assassins. If you haven't caught on yet, I'm using the names as they were said at the time and/or in the language of the setting. I don't know how Ezio was able to locate the buildings that were run down and required renovation, so I assumed that someone scouted them out and drew him a map to make it seem somewhat easier. It works for me to see it that way. The rest of the story runs parallel to the events of Brotherhood, following as many major events as I thought it possible for Kadar to attend up to the mission that revealed the identity of a thief who had been turned by the Borgia.


	6. From Sights to Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next few weeks and months and years went by rather quickly as the people of Roma seem inspired by Assassin efforts to bring down the Borgia. As such, their money was no longer accepted as bribes from guards and Cesare’s words were no longer taken as law especially after he killed his father Rodrigo for attempting to poison him and his successor as Pope knew he was too radical to remain in charge of his armies. You could say that these were the signs that Roma was finally accepting the new culture started in Firenze, bringing about a Renaissance. Within the Assassins, great changes were also taking place. Ezio’s sister Claudia had more than proven herself useful, loyal and dedicated, leading to her official indoctrination into the Brotherhood. At the same ceremony, Machiavelli announced that he would be stepping down from the head of the Order and appointing Ezio as his successor, though Ezio in turn still appointed Machiavelli as his personal advisor. With the Apple once again in Ezio’s possession, it was no longer difficult for him to erase what little influence Cesare had left by investing more money and using the Apple to turn even his most loyal followers against him. With all said and done, What is Kadar to do now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the events of the Spanish Inquisition coincided with the Renaissance, I decided that it would take to long for Kadar to get there in time to be active in Spain at the same time as Aguilar. As such, I skipped ahead to pirates as two centuries without the capability to die or age can most definitely get you to the West Indies from Italy. Given a few of the other IPs that I intend to implement, this is also a good way to instil within Kadar the idea to make the most of his seemingly never-ending time on this Earth. That being said, if you want me to implement Pirates of the Caribbean, now is the chance to request that I do so as the story arc in this area will last a while. But until then, I won't implement any more than this until the next arc.  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co. and 20th Century Fox for Disney Enterprises Inc.

The duty was done and although Cesare continued to elude Ezio, even with the aid of the new Pope, Julius II, thus sending him on a wild goose chase to make doubly sure that he could not return to power, Roma had been liberated and all of Italia was finally set on its new path. But what was to happen with my time now? Well, as the decades passed, I began to hear rumours about two men across time who had the exact same features. Of course I had heard of identical twins so it was no surprise until they mentioned that these men were from different time periods. I had understood that a baby took features from both its mother and father, but that one man who perfectly resembled a man from ages ago and may not even be a direct ancestor? I had to investigate. 

Having kept up to date with the newest technologies prior, this investigation took me to the West Indies in 1710 and the village in Tulum where the local Brotherhood stood. The next two years were spent proving myself and when this eventually happened, I was shown to a ruin on the island. There I met with the local Mentor, Ah Tabai, with whom I described my interest in the multiple men across time that shared a face. He appeared both surprised and not so before he calmly said “We and the Mayan tribes around formed a coalition from our similar belief systems in that we think these men that we call Sages” indicating a massive bust of a man whose face matched the description I was given “have direct ties to the Precursor race, the Pieces of Eden and the various sites and vaults that house them.” I was quick to ask if I could have in on the next job concerning these “Sages” and within the next two to three years of odd jobs was approved.

In June 1715, an English visitor named Duncan Walpole was assigned to the city of Havana to investigate rumours regarding a Sage, but when we heard that his vessel, the HMS  _ Intrigue _ , was set upon by pirates, I was placed on the next ship out. On the journey there, I had a turn at the wheel and was quick to understand why so many took to the seas in this day and age, even if that meant turning to a life of piracy just to make a decent living. Upon arrival, we were greeted by the local bureau operator, a Scotswoman named Rhona Dinsmore, who took us there to discuss the plan of action. One of the men already at her disposal reported seeing a man in British Assassin robes taking up a job for the local Templar leader, Laureano Torres, to prove his loyalty to their cause as selling maps and glass cubes linked directly to what they were interested in this time (which in turn brought their attention to the Sage) was only stage one of their tests of his loyalty. One of the men from my ship confirmed that days before, Duncan Walpole was sent here on assignment, but his ship had been lost on the way. Most of the men deduced that this was Duncan’s way of turning his coat on the Brotherhood. Others thought this was an elaborate hoax to win the Templars’ trust. I enquired as to what the man’s face looked like and he in no way matched the face I saw back in Yucatan. Regardless, if the Templars were going to act, they would do so in haste, giving us only a few hours to prepare.

During those few hours, I was given a pouch what’s contents were to be used as ammunition for twin pistols that came with them, should I need to reload, and the final stages of preparation were completed only just in time. In the next few minutes, the Templars emerged from the dock district with a man with facial feature indicated he was the Sage that both the local Brotherhood and Templar order were supposedly after for around the last ten years. Almost immediately, we noted the Assassin walking with them and most of the men, feeling betrayed, made their move too early and were struck down quickly. Clearly there was no need for a cue anymore as a British man we were able to identify as Woodes Rogers had already pointed us out and the guards organised themselves into defensive positions. That first wave made Torres note “Watch the streets and alleys. They could be anywhere.” and he was not wrong as I and a few others jumped out from a nearby alleyway while some snipers made their position on the rooftops known and drew their rifles, ready to fire on the ground, but the Assassin turncoat quickly made short work of them and jumped down on two others fighting on the ground. Making my way to him, I noticed his counter-defence was impeccable but more notably was that his face matched the description I was given, but not the facial profile of anyone I knew.

The tide was definitely against us from the start. Even when we made a last ditch effort to get the Sage away from the Templars, despite some of us using blowpipes to fire darts to subdue them, he turned on us and made a run for it. Making my report back to the bureau, I made note of the Sage being recaptured and the watch for his cell being doubled. Thankfully, there were enough survivors to crew the ship to take us home and astonishingly, I was named Captain by the others, though this time I kept to my quarters in deep thought rather than take the wheel again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think the Caribbean Brotherhood's work with the local Mayan tribes was specifically talked about in the game but was confirmed by external media, hence why I use it here. I assume Rhona Dinsmore coordinated the attack on the Templar efforts moving the Sage that would go on to be known as "Black" Bartholomew Roberts as she was the one Edward Kenway helps in the Templar Hunt in Havana, one of 4 optional story arcs to acquire keys to a Templar coat. Woodes Rogers being the first to notice the attacking Assassin force, Torres' quote afterwards and Roberts being released, but re-apprehended were all moments from the same mission in the game, Black Flag. That Kadar was elected Captain by the surviving crew, I don't know how often that happens but it works for me to give him his own ship.


	7. What's a Pirate's Life Like?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not many of the survivors of the attack on Havana were able to keep a cool head or a clear mind after seeing one of the Templar associates in Assassin robes. Having lived so long and what he observed about this man, Kadar was one of said few. He knew he had to report in, but on the way, all he could think about was figuring out who that was. The best way to do that was indeed to check in, ask for permission and maybe get his newly given position as captain of the ship taken there officially approved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I acknowledge that this has come out a day late. In my case, to miss a deadline is not uncommon, but usually that has only ever happened on my YouTube video upload schedule thus far. As such, I have set the official release date as yesterday, the day it was supposed to release. I have my reasons for this and for keeping the list of IPs currently included as follows:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co. and 20th Century Fox for Disney Enterprises Inc.

When we docked back at Tulum, I had a few things to discuss with Ah Tabai. First was the outcome of the mission. When it got to who we went up against, I confirmed that the position of Assassin turncoat was intended for Duncan Walpole but taken by someone else and when I described the man’s face, a woman dressed in male privateer’s attire piped into the conversation. “Did this man wield two swords and focus on counter-defence?”

Confused as to her choice of style, I tried to play it cool. “Yes. Do you have a name?”

“More than one, actually. Publicly, I not only dress like a man but am also able to pass as the bastard son of the late William Kidd, James. Here, you may call me Mary Read.”

Why she did this then dawned on me. I had heard that the major influx of pirate populace had been due to the end of naval conflicts between the major empires killing all need for contracted privateers. If she was to join a ship of this intent, there was no chance in her being accepted if she had remained a woman publicly. But I had to interrupt this thought process to discover who she thought “Walpole” really was. “You say that false Walpole is someone you know?”

“Yes. He seems to resemble a man with whom I served when under Benjamin Hornigold.”

“And his name is?”

“Captain Edward Kenway. Recently dubbed such when he took over a brig he calls the _Jackdaw_.”

Ah Tabai immediately ordered he be brought over for questioning. If successful, his purpose and intent would reveal themselves, but Mary needed a vessel. This created the perfect segway into the next thing I intended to speak of. How there were very few survivors of my ship’s crew and how in the absence of a captain, I was nominated for the position. As it was an Assassin vessel and all veteran sailors that were not already captains were elsewhere, he approved my appointment as official captain of the ship now called the _Wisdom_.

As a gentleman, I gave Mary (now James) the task of navigating us to the headquarters of the pirate operations. Pulling into the port of Nassau, where all pirates operating in the area gather, the crew unloaded all they wished as soon as we saw another ship pulling into view. This ship was the _Jackdaw_ who’s captain I had met in Havana. James said to fill the rest of the positions on my crew, so I made my way to the tavern to see if there were any opportunities to aid men capable of tying down sails to see if they will accept work in return. As I was handing out a few Reales to loosen a few pairs of lips, I heard coming from my right say “If you want to recruit people by helping them, I have plenty of opportunities for you.” I looked round to see  a male patron with black facial hair and equally black seaworthy attire sat at a table. He motioned to the chair opposite him and I sat down. “Kind of you to offer, Mr….”

“*Captain* Ed Thatch. And before you go recklessly looking for trouble, I have to warn you that a contingent of the King’s men was dropped here recently, running about like they own the place.”

I was aware that the irony was that they used to and the Templars may coerce them to make it so again, considering they may see piracy as a form of insurrection, but had the sense not to express it, only thanking Captain Thatch for his time and moving on. So much have the times changed that it was easy to identify potentially hostile soldiers, although initially less so to pick out the higher ranked ones. I was sure I missed several groups, but also that if that was the case, some other captain, possibly even Captain Kenway, would get to them in time. For now, I had to return to the _Wisdom_ to assign duties and purchase/install all possible upgrades for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Mary Read was able to pass as a young man by dressing the part was inspired by her real life counterpart. That her male name was James Kidd, I don't know. But one thing's for sure, come Mary's death, Kadar will take the name of James in her honour, though he would choose not to use a last name for some time. It should come as no surprise that you learn my real name is also James and I based the personality and appearance of Kadar on myself with an ideal physique while keeping within the rules of the original AH Immortals AU from which the idea for this was spawned. As for why Blackbeard would give help to a passing man he doesn't know? Mary could easily told him and/or he just so happens to respect all seamen enough to have mercy in his dictionary. That being said, his line, "running about like they own the place" is exactly what he said to Edward when he was in the same position as Kadar, in that he needed to aid capable pairs of hands to convince them to join his crew. That Mary refers to her male persona as "the bastard son of the late William Kidd" is pointed out before Edward asks her what she knows about a plantation to rob.


	8. An Active Time and a Sad Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his first major job in the Caribbean leaves him with a ship of his own crewed by very loyal and very capable men, Kadar is given the task of bringing himself up to speed with the background of what the Templars were after and the means at the local Assassins' disposal to arrange for a spanner to be cast into the works (that phrase again is quite relevant, even if it hadn't been used yet).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I acknowledge that the summary might be on the short side. My reasoning is that there is only so much I can say without going into spoiler territory. That being said, if you want me to have Kadar interact with another immortal, I already plan on him associating with rage_quitter's take on the Achievement Hunter boys, though you will no doubt hate to wait so long as to get him to San Andreas. Because it will be such a while until GTA V in this timeline, the IPs used are still just as follows:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co. and 20th Century Fox for Disney Enterprises Inc.

For the remainder of that year, I had been getting acquainted with why the Templars were so interested in the Sage we saw them with in Havana. Rumour had reached the local Templar leaders around 20 years ago about a Precursor site called “the Observatory” and its supposed promise of revealing any one man’s everyday life and his deepest secrets have kept them motivated to criss-cross the Caribbean searching for it and the Sage who may know its exact whereabouts ever since. To understand what a Sage really is, I knew I had to join the race for this Observatory. It began in earnest when the  _ Jackdaw _ was directed to Tulum and Captain Kenway was directed down the same path through the ruins as I was when I first arrived. When he exited, the Templars had attacked, and tied us up with rifles aimed at our heads should we make a move, us being the local Assassins, the crew of my ship and the crew of Kenway’s (the latter of which prompting him to come to our aid).

I was among those being held at the highest point of our stronghold by British soldiers. While I could have sacrificed my current body to give the prisoners I was held with even the slightest amount of time, my secret would have gotten out. How, you ask? When I pass by any places where I previously fell, I noticed that the body was not there, but in its place were traces of silvery dust. I was only able to identify it slightly and even then, I had to use my gifts of Eagle Vision to confirm it. My theory was that the fallen body, if it belongs to a soul that cannot die, deconstructs into dust and reforms a distance I could not even approximate away. The other Assassins would have caught on eventually as those who see me often enough would make note that I don’t age and that was all I wanted them to know. Given our dire situation, I would be given suicide missions and nothing else if it all got out. My greater concern was the soldiers. If my condition became a common rumour, the Templars would no doubt investigate and try to turn, imprison, interrogate me for more information or work out some other way to destroy me once and for all. Thankfully, Kenway got us out before I could decide to make a move or not.

As a result of his part in defending the village during the attack, Kenway was forgiven for the blood he spilled for the Templars in the pursuit of money but not for bringing shame to the Assassin cause and the possibility of using the Creed to justify it. Thus he was not offered a chance to join our ranks but opportunities to act in our best interests as a mercenary of sorts, being offered a reward for taking out our targets, acting before we do. One of these was the Commander of the attacking force, Laurens Prins. Conveniently enough, he was holding the Sage ransom at the time and Governor Torres was eager to pay. This was an opportunity for us to not only hit two birds with one stone, but gain a step on the Templars in the race for the Observatory. James was given the task and once again, I captained the  _ Wisdom _ to get her there. When we got there, Kenway was already making his own move to profit from this. Because of this, Torres and the Sage got away but Prins fell.

After delivering Mary home, the crew seemed weary and wanted to cool down back in Nassau. I agreed with this sentiment as I wished to hear some news from the people. At the tavern, a familiar face appeared, looking more or less different. “Captain Thatch. It’s been a while.” 

“It doesn’t seem to have done anything to you.”

“You are quite the contrary. Your face speaks of all the action you must have seen.” See, last time we met, he had barely an inch or two of hair all around his chin. Now a fine crop of blackness covered it all, hence his new moniker, Blackbeard. “Aye. I have been saying recently that there’s no need for a Black Flag when a black beard will do fine. I assume you came for more than just a facial profile.” 

“Aye. What have I missed since last I was here?”

“Talking with a greasy Bermudan captain, I heard of a pardon on offer for any pirate who wants it. My colleague Vane believes this to be some sort of ruse, but I find this source credible.”

“I still think you should prepare for the worst.”

“We intend to considering that even if this a ruse, a regiment of the King’s men coming to rob us of our land and our freedom is inevitable and they no doubt will be armed. Kenway proposed that we prioritise saving the town by resupplying our stock of medicines.”

“I assume the plan is to not attract British attention while doing so.”

“If desperate times call, we will take desperate measures. That being said, Hornigold sees no hope in either solution, but Kenway bought a diving bell the other day to see if discreet ways of obtaining medicines, namely from shipwrecks, are even possible. If that fails, I don’t know.”

“Well, I hope things turn out all right. I best be off now so I bid you farewell and wish you good luck.”

“Thank ye. We’re going to need it.” 

Unfortunately that would be the last direct conversation I had with Captain Thatch as two years later the British (lead, surprise to everyone but Assassins, by the Templar Woodes Rogers) made their move on Nassau. Those who declined the offered pardon decided to blast the blockade to smithereens and while Rogers acted as a messenger first and executioner after, (something I can’t help but praise him for) associates of his that thought the best course of action was to forego the former were quickly silenced from what I heard as I was not in Nassau at the time, nor was my ship docked there. Why I never heard from Blackbeard since was because after the last big tale of his exploits got out (that being a siege on those who horde medicines out of Charles-Towne, Virginia), he was also said to have retired from life on the sea. Sadly, word got to my crew about the celebration in his honour going to hell. I knew Thatch would not walk away from making a defensive move, but I was shocked to learn that he had been killed in action. A lot of us thought he was too good for that, considering he captained a mighty frigate while the biggest many others settle for as we have was a brig and he was daring enough to light fuses in his namesake or from his hat so it looked like his being on fire was due to a deal with the devil. 

Mourning may have made us only taking transport jobs for perhaps the rest of that season, but we only really had odd jobs to do until 1721 when word reached us that Mary Read had been incarcerated alongside Anne Bonny after attempting to recruit from Calico Jack Rackham’s crew. Ah Tabai needed transport to Jamaica and I was happy to volunteer the  _ Wisdom _ for the task. When we docked in Kingston, I lent him one of our longboats to take out to Port Royal, but when it returned, everyone was silent. He had gone in for two prisoners, Anne and Mary, but only brought Anne on board. We learned that Mary had passed away due to an illness that could have come when the baby she claimed to be having at the time grew inside her. Her funeral had to be quick as Templar forces were amassing ready to attack. When they arrived, I quickly raced on deck and while we were able to disable the ship they came in, thus preventing escape, there was nothing we could do to stop them from dispatching longboats intent on attacking the village itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whole thing about the Observatory that was addressed at the top was based on what I understood from an explanation from Torres in the first mission that he meets Edward (introduced as Duncan Walpole) face to face. The rest of the following paragraph and a half took place the first time he docked in Tulum and when the Assassins and crewmen get captured, Kadar's monologue in his mind is supposed to let on that living for so long has given him a lot of time to gain in wisdom, knowledge and intellect, the first of those most important to his character going forward. The talk with Blackbeard was first discussed with Edward, Ben Hornigold and Charles Vane, as I have already stated in the work, though I'm not sure if the Bermudan captain he first heard the rumour about a pardon spilled it under interrogation, hence why Thatch said what he said. If you have played or read up on the plot of AC IV Black Flag, then I don't have to explain the Blockade of Nassau, Blackbeard's retirement or Mary Read's fairly sad demise, even for me. Interestingly enough, while I'm not 100% sure that the real Mary died while in prison, she and the real Anne Bonney did claim that they were pregnant to stay their executions as represented in game.


	9. Short-lived Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Assassins began to gain power in the Caribbean and America, Kadar (now identifying as James as a tribute to the late Mary Read) and the crew of his ship decide to take a well earned break from major jobs. But then, the Templars struck back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have two things to note. First, I didn't have much to say in the summary without spoiling anything, hence why it's so short. As for my lateness (the official day of release will again be modified to appear to have gotten out on time), I was so caught up in writing the screenplay for the film I'm making, a trailer for which is already on my secondary YouTube channel. Also, I have read some works that suggest what music should be used to accompany the tale. With my current fascination with the magic of film score, more specifically the magical maestro, John Williams, I have been considering doing the same, pulling my options from Star Wars and Harry Potter, just to name a few. If you want that and also have other suggestions (leave them as composer, film, track title eg Danny Elfman, Alice in Wonderland, Alice's Theme), be sure to yay/nay about it in the comments. As for IPs used, I have finally introduced one of the Achievement Hunters. Can you find who it is? Bonus points if you can do so without having read the original AH Immortals works before. As such, the list now looks like this:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co. and 20th Century Fox for Disney Enterprises Inc.  
> The Fake AH Crew and respective characters/logos are properties of Achievement Hunter, a subsidiary of Rooster Teeth Productions LLC.

Eventually the attack was stopped by the marginally late Kenway and filled with regret, he killed all the Templar leaders in the area. Despite this, the location was far too compromised to continue to use as a permanent base. As such, he lent us his stronghold in the cove of Great Inagua which he had taken from Julien du Casse seven years prior and had been making more liveable ever since. With the major Templar threat eliminated from the West Indies, I found myself once again seeking a new assignment. For the most part, this revolved around odd jobs for the American Brotherhood, which abruptly ended. Up till then, I had heard of Edward’s murder at the hands of a Templar in an effort to shield their sins from his son Haytham to make him more readily want to join their ranks. What troubled me was that he did not seem to be questioning his loyalties when he arrived in Boston with the intent of starting an independent American Order and so absorbed in his convictions was he that Assassin turncoat Shay Patrick Cormac did not hesitate to join up with him when the leadership of Achilles Davenport disappointed him. I didn’t blame either party for Achilles’ bad decision making but found that turning on the Brotherhood and almost driving them completely from the colonies seemed a bit much. Especially when it involved the purposeful destruction of our whole navy in the area and unfortunately, that included the  _ Wisdom _ . 

My heart ached with dreams of vengeance since that day, but I still kept a cool head and a clear mind. I knew for a fact that Reginald Birch had to have been involved in Edward’s death as he had been confirmed within the last few years to be not only a Templar, but the Grandmaster of the British Rite at the time. If something hadn’t been done yet, there was a reason to get it done now. When I began my investigations, I was surprised to learn that he had purchased a chateau outside of France and booked passage from the docks as I no longer had a ship of my own. It was only after I was finished that I learned that he had been eliminated by a now knowledgeable Haytham, a friend of his and his half-sister Jennifer, though this would not cause him to defect from the Templars as Shay had the Assassins.

When I arrived in Paris for refreshments, the French Revolution was in full swing. The people were starving and the women, lead by one Anne-Josephe Theroigne de Mericourt, were speaking out. Though the majority of the crowd demanded bread, I could have sworn one or two of the protestors yelling for blood. I quickly identified a French Assassin and asked him of this. He said in response “We have reason to believe Templar agents wish to turn this from a peaceful word out into a bloody riot against the royals.” I jumped at the chance to join the team who had to stop this from happening. This gave me my first taste of life in Revolutionary Paris as I decided then to stick around for a while.

Despite this, one of my teammates, Arno Dorian, was given the lead on an investigation into a Templar truce gone sour and with good reason in that he was motivated by why said truce went sour. The previous Grandmaster of the French Templars and Arno’s foster father, Francois de la Serre, was murdered by an extremist sub-faction that quickly rose to Templar leadership. I was only ever asked to aid him in finding evidence against one of these conspirators, Maximilien de Robespierre, in an effort to turn public opinion against the Templars and all who sympathise with them, as well as righting various wrongs that he had against his name in both the Assassin (like transporting the Assassin relics of a recently deceased Mentor from his tomb in the Pantheon) and public eyes (like saving Girondists from his enforcer, Francois Hanriot). In a few years however, I noticed that some who were sentenced to the guillotine were more innocent than their official records stated. During a mission to investigate rumours of nobles hoarding food in 1793, I noticed a woman with a similar shade of colour in her hair to mine that dressed in man’s clothes wandering the marketplace eyeing the target. Presumably the same woman, now more resembling a noble meaning she had money but sympathised with the Revolutionaries, was getting dragged out of her home by what appeared to be men of Robespierre’s faction, the Jacobins later that year. This meant that either he or his superiors wished to crack down on nobles who disagreed with them. I held back my desire to save her as despite her innocence and the people close to falling out of Templar mindsets, a execution that was organised but never completed would be noticed. I went to the execution site and still considered saving her, but a safe opportunity never presented itself and so with her last words, “This will not end”, I knew there was nothing I could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I admit, I could have given James a big part to play in the attempted defence against Shay Patrick Cormac if I had more knowledge about how the destruction of Assassin encampments happened. They were very difficult to address as I have never played the game and all I have seen of it are movies based on delivering relevant cutscenes and gameplay in a cinematic/story-based viewing. I also admit that clarifying what happened with Birch as I was setting up a reason to send James to revolutionary France could easily detract from a feeling of motivation from the reader, giving you less incentive to root for him and want him to succeed. That being said, I look at the broader picture when I set up motivation and since one can literally find this by searching for Assassin's Creed works on the Archive, I assume people already have a decent understanding of what motivates an Assassin.
> 
> With that over, every mission I specifically mention James joining Arno Dorian in completing is meant to be one of the cooperative missions that the player of AC Unity can attempt (even if it's just them). Some of them, like the ones I specifically mention, revolve around one or more key figures in the Revolution that sympathise with the Assassins or Templars. Others, these I might mention when James actually get to San Andreas, are all about finding the right priceless collectable inside a building full of fakes. Finally, it's the woman who says "This will not end" before she is guillotined who is the Achievement Hunter character. She is Jaqueline de Paillard, the lady who will eventually become Jack Patillo, second only to Geoff in their hierarchy.
> 
> Edit: I acknowledge that eventually Geoff will move up to managing all of Lets Play as this art will be imitating life as I have stated numerous times before, with Lindsay taking his place as the one responsible for the other Achievement Hunters. That being said, up till reaching a point which rage_quitter has stated in on of the numerous tales from the original AH Immortals where Geoff announces Lindsay's promotion, Jack was pretty much his right hand which likely took from the real life Jack being pretty much an OG within the company, founded by Geoff who (for those who aren't aware) did so from within Rooster Teeth, a company he also had a hand in founding alongside current CEO and CCO, Matt Hullum and Burnie Burns, respectively, among others.


	10. Quiet, yet Productive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite dropping out of major assignments for some periods of time, James never took an actual hiatus from active duty. When he thinks he does, he finds some way to be beneficial to the Assassins without tipping anyone off about his immortality. There is that rare occasion, when recruiting potential candidates, when he can't hold it in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am now getting to the stage where I start introducing IP after IP as last chapter I introduced a character from the original AH Immortals and now I'm sending James to get comfortable with wizardry around near Hogwarts which, considering all the places that will have to be explored, will explain the major length of this chapter combined with an experiment, the first interaction between characters that will use fully fleshed out dialogue. As for the current list of IPs, it now stands thus:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co. and 20th Century Fox for Disney Enterprises Inc.  
> The Fake AH Crew and respective characters/logos are properties of Achievement Hunter, a subsidiary of Rooster Teeth Productions LLC.  
> Harry Potter created by J.K. Rowling and distributed by (books) Bloomsbury Publishing Co Ltd (movies) Warner Bros

Eventually Robespierre got what he deserved and was eventually followed up by his superior, Francois-Thomas Germain (Templar leader and a Sage to boot), courtesy of Arno Dorian (who had been recently dismissed from the Brotherhood) and Elise de la Serre (his foster sister and lover) at the cost of the latter’s life. With the extremist Templars silenced I looked once again for another big assignment. In the absence of one I dove into deep training. Before it began in earnest, I was asked by Arno to aid him in carrying out three more jobs. One revolving around destroying the remaining remnants of Germain’s Templars, another around keeping tax money from falling into the hands of tomb raiders and the final concerned protecting the then Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, from an attempt on his life by Royalists.

Unfortunately for me, when my deep training began, I was heading to Britain at the time and when I got there an Industrial Revolution was imminent causing me to steer clear of major settlements, eventually ending up in the mountainous areas of what would become known as Scotland. There, I came across a curious woman up on her own. She had black hair and a skin tone that appeared as if it had been tanned on. I decided to talk to her. “Excuse me, do you live here? This doesn’t look like a place for someone like you to wander around.”

“No, but I do live close to here. The town I live in is a curious place, if you intend to go there.”

“Before I do, I’d like to know a little more about you and what’s so curious about you and the town. You can say all you like, when you like. You might find that which may surprise the masses not so surprising to me.”

She had to take some time to collect her thoughts before she found she could trust me by noticing my ring which had never left my finger since I found it save for when I gave it to Leonardo da Vinci to study. I took that time to make myself comfortable as she was settling down, doing the same. The woman introduced herself as Sydney Kenway, daughter of Connor. I had heard of Connor restoring the American Brotherhood in my absence, but not that he was Haytham’s son, though my blood cooled when she revealed she had the journals of both her father and grandfather. “I was separated from my father some years ago when my mother left him. I got curious so I found this and they describe an order that abides by a Creed that I adopted and promote a cause that I sympathise with.” 

“If your goal here was to train, why could you not do it on the frontier, as your father had?” 

“My mother was not as approving of his lifestyle as I was. Reading this, I yearned to break away from the simple life my mother had in store for me. Do you understand how boring that which is considered normal is?”

“I’m aware of where you come from. In my childhood, I knew I was part of something greater. Now I have grown into a much wiser man. Now, you spoke plenty about your family life, but if you are Connor’s daughter, why do you look so young?” She looked no older than I looked. The key word there is looked.

“That’s why I came to this town. It’s a secret I barely share.”

She went on to describe how decades ago she was making an effort to get herself noticed by the local Brotherhood, but found her stealth skills lacking. Indeed, she admitted to being fairly reckless in her pursuits and allowing her presence to be noticeable much too early. As such, she got herself shot in the chest, specifically between her breasts, proven by the scar similar to mine she showed when she pulled the collar of her shirt down far enough to see it and nothing more. My eyes lit up. The thought “I’m not alone?” raced through my mind about a hundred times. “I’m already considered strange enough as it is.” Sydney said, sighing a little. “That I came back from the dead and can never grow old makes it even worse because no one can understand.”

“And what about me? There is a reason I’m not surprised by your confession.” In saying this, I lifted up my shirt and showed the scar from Masyaf what’s background I described including the fact that every other time I have died since, no other scar existed. She seemed as thrilled as I was about finding out she was not the only immortal, though was more expressive of this, demonstrated by her throwing herself into my arms.

This embrace lasted for 10 seconds before she broke off, causing us both to go a little rosy cheeked. I eventually got up and said “Would you like to show me the way to this town you’re talking about?”

At this, Sydney began packing her equipment into this small bag cuing me to do the same, after which she said “Perish the thought of me just showing you how to get there. I will bring you there.” Quickly she grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me in a direction, though this didn’t last long as she went to a walking pace so that I didn’t lose an arm while staying close to her. By now, I had realised that she had told me all about herself, but nothing about the town in which she resided. I pointed this out to her and she said “This town lies on the doorstep of an interesting school called Hogwarts. But before I talk about it, I have to ask you, do you believe in magic?”

Letting off a somewhat smug scoff, I responded saying “When you live as long as I have, you become both difficult and easier to surprise.”

“Then would you be surprised if I say that magic and its practitioners, witches and wizards if you prefer, have been a thing for hundreds of years, out of site of those who don’t practice, them who they call Muggles?”

“I praise the magical community for staying out of site from Muggles as you call us for so long.”

“Oh, but you have the potential to be a wizard too, if only you had the proper equipment.”

“How can I be a wizard? I’m just an ordinary Assassin.”

“The power to do magic is in your blood, though it is a recessive detail. That is, it’s not a common gene in the grand scheme of people, despite the population of magical towns.”

“And what about it is special with me? Is it the reason I can use a sixth sense, an Eagle’s Vision, if you’d rather?” 

“Quite possibly. We just need to head to town to catch transport to where we can get you wizard tools if you really want to find out.”

We had just concluded the conversation when we arrived in the town of Hogsmeade and Sydney started asking around for when the local train station construction had been completed if it hadn’t been already and where it was. As she was doing that, I marvelled at the grandness and the majesty of a castle in the distance that she would go on to confirm to be the mightily famous school of witchcraft and wizardry itself. Thankfully, the station was completed some years prior and the train referred to as the Hogwarts Express was to depart that night to take that year’s Hogwarts students to school. Since we had already packed, it was an easy matter getting our things onto the train, though it took some coin to coerce the operators to let us be on board. The plan was to sleep on the train if we needed to as we would arrive when the sun had risen. We arrived in Kings Cross station at 9:00 and the smoky industrial smell was still in the air from last time I was in London in the sense that I was just passing through. When we disembarked, Sydney led me across the platform coming to a stop in front of a brick pillar. “Okay,” she said. “We continue through here.” 

“You’re not serious, are you?”    


“You say so yourself. Not everything is exactly what they appear at face value. You’ll live, trust me.” 

There was no turning back anyway so at this point I felt obligated to let her lead. This was her area of expertise, after all. She grasped my hand and lead me through to the other side.  On the other side of this magical barrier, I was all right and we were now on a busier platform. At that point I understood why this was in place. Muggles would see a train that leaves its station to take students to and from an undisclosed location (to them) as suspicious and in my experience, the common man is not a fan of things out of the ordinary. This gave me the faith to trust Sydney fully. So much so that when I hired a carriage to take us where we were going, I gave the driver instructions to have her navigate. When we stopped, we were outside a black building surrounded by all this other scaffolding. When we went inside, I was asked by the innkeeper if I wanted something. Clearly he didn’t recognise me and thus knew this was my first passing through so I politely declined and left the talking to Sydney, having a wander to pass time while I waited. Once she was finished, she took me out back.

Out the back of the inn that was referred to by Sydney as the Leaky Cauldron there was a brick wall. Once she tapped it, the wall began to shift or move and leave a fine gap in the brickwork, with no brick sticking out. “What do you call this, then?” I asked.

“This?” Sydney responded. “This is Diagon Alley.” The sights looked like any other market street. The difference being the items being on offer and the shops that were offering them. Clearly, the wizarding community had the feeling of its own world. I quickly surmised that it must also have its own currency and after expressing this to her asked what the pound to wizard’s coin exchange rates were. “Firstly, the highest wizard currency is the Galleon so refer to it as that. Secondly, there is a bank around here we could ask but that could take some time. Fortunately, I have a vault on site that has money you can use.” She lead me to a place known as Gringotts Bank and talked her way into letting me join her and a goblin escort to her vault. There, she picked up a few coins and dropped many more in a pouch she threw to me. She did well to trust my reflexes as I caught the pouch with relative ease.

With this, I was directed first to the shop of Garrick Ollivander to acquire a wand. The man looked fairly old and it came with a certain kind of wisdom to share with those just introducing themselves to magic. “This is a shop unlike any other in that the wizard does not choose the wand, but the wand chooses the wizard, young sir.” To demonstrate his point, he handed out a few wands for me to try out before settling on one that seemed to cooperate well. The wand that “chose” me was 14 inches long and described to have an unbending flexibility and an exterior of beech wood with a core of dragon heartstring. “This means you no doubt uphold the values of Ravenclaw house, but tend to have an aggressive style which will no doubt affect how you cast,” Ollivander stated. I then paid him seven Galleons for his time and bid him farewell as I proceeded to purchase other items with Sydney as she said that once we return, we would begin training. She seemed eager to teach me all she could and learn all my experience as an Assassin during that time. As I could both learn from and teach this woman, I found this situation too intriguing to pass up.

How we got back was one of the first magical acts I saw and yet one of the last I would learn. Sydney asked me to take her arm and while I hesitated for a little while, I obliged and found myself getting sucked through reality until we arrived back in the outskirts of Hogsmeade. She said we just Apparated and I took my first time fairly well. She lead me to a secluded place in the mountains where we would train each other for decades with her teaching me about various different spells, potion brewing, how to ride a broomstick, etcetera and me teaching her of all my Assassin’s tactics, how to use each tool of the trade and a more detailed history of my life, its sufferings and our war with the Templars. As time passes, we became romantically engaged and eventually, we can’t help but give into these emotions, uniting as not just business partners, but now in marriage, with my present to her being another sword of light and ring like mine to use in the place of an actual wedding ring. What one of us could not teach the other, we now had all the time in the world to learn by doing. As before then I had been going by the name of “James from nowhere”, I finally had a surname to accept. Coincidentally, Sydney’s great grandfather Edward’s middle name was James and she saw it as a reasonable tribute that I now introduce myself as James Kenway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I chose the name Sydney as Australia was colonised in the very late 1700s and so I assumed that Sydney was a common female name at the time. While conceiving the plot, the name was a placeholder until I pieced that together and so it more or less stuck. As for how her father could be Connor himself, the facts state that with his wife, he had an undisclosed number of children before splitting with her and living the rest of his life out by himself. The inclusion of a view of Hogwarts was a last minute addition to prove that James was capable of magic as Muggles would only see ruins if they looked upon where the school would be. If my introduction to the Wizarding World and my preferred medium for viewing it were the books, I would probably have used their descriptions of the locations to give a more detailed picture rather than assume that the audience would have a picture in their minds from the descriptions in the books or the sets used on the movies which (coupled with a fantastical musical score) do the biggest job of setting the scene. That being said, since my preferred medium was the films but knew that some small detail could have been altered, I left them up in the air enough for the reader to take it how they wished. The wand that spoke to James and the likelihood that he would be in Ravenclaw that was pointed out by Olivander was taken directly from what Pottermore decided for me based on personality tests. I put this on YouTube for you to see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBgGR1EQsQo


	11. The Modern Age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technology has been evolving. Now united with the immortal woman Sydney, James has seen the majority of highs and lows in technology and in leadership. Knowing that the Assassin's fortunes will change for the worse eventually, he determines that they need funding and the idea that Sydney brought up could not only work for that, but also to give them the thrill of living, something the technology of the time could finally support.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gears are finally in motion. James and Sydney are on the doorstep of the modern era. Saying which event of a particular discipline is being used is spoiler territory for me, but here I'll say that the discipline itself is rallying. As such, I will add a name to the list of IPs currently used and it will not be the Historic Rally races from the DiRT franchise.  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co. and 20th Century Fox for Disney Enterprises Inc.  
> The Fake AH Crew and respective characters/logos are properties of Achievement Hunter, a subsidiary of Rooster Teeth Productions LLC.  
> Harry Potter created by J.K. Rowling and distributed by (books) Bloomsbury Publishing Co Ltd (movies) Warner Bros  
> The World Rally Championship owned and operated by the Federation for International Autosports

The 1900s were times of both blood and fun. I say blood because this century was one of war. Both World Wars, each of us accepting jobs to test what we’ve learned from the other and two wizarding conflicts. I won’t go into too much detail as there was a lot of chaotic events and the public faces of them were already well documented even though some of them get dismissed as nothing more than myth if not entirely fiction. That being said, we took up the call of duty to serve in some of these conflicts and this caused several deaths for both of us, regardless of the essence of the mission be it stealthy or to join a massive battle. The fun came from what we did in our down time. Aside from that which comes with married life, once the dust had settled, we too could take a well earned hiatus from real work. This just so happened to be the perfect time as cinema was becoming popular and transport was becoming both independent and a blast with the creation of the automobile. 

I shall start in 1971 when I acquired a Dodge Charger for Sydney, a ‘67 Shelby Mustang GT500 for myself and a Dodge Challenger for us both. In the years leading up to this, we had been working on our drivers and racing licences. We agreed that if we can return to life infinitely, we should make the most of our endless time having fun as well as doing a duty. This fun was also beneficial as Assassin work only gave so much in return, whereas we would make money and a respectable public name doing various other things. That being said, I personally was not the biggest fan of a vehicle that had next to no relation to a real car. Sydney wanted a big event to debut us driving as a team in one of our cars and I found the Press-on-Regardless road rally. I decided we should both learn the two roles of rally driving in case we want to swap roles at some point. For this first rally, she elected to drive while I navigate. We took the reconnaissance stage as an opportunity to find a system that works while writing the pace notes accordingly, testing what was the best version to go by on a shakedown stage prior to the official start.

As a novice/unproven team, we were left at the place where the cars would be shown called Parc Expose the longest because the most proven drivers that were definitely fast were to leave the soonest. We got a few optimistic/encouraging glances and a few frowns from spectators. Once in the car, we exchanged that “if only they knew” look and proceeded to begin the transit to our first full and official stage. Lining up once there, the cars in front gave us a few wishes of luck before being sent on their way. I was nervous as we wanted to win, but I also wanted the car in one piece. The nerves were coming from fear that how I had written the pace notes may not tell her to drive as safe as she could when necessary. However, the time to find out was now as the countdown to our start time had begun.

One area of concern was near the end of the third stage when the view was obscured by an incline in the direction we were going. We were going into a right turn and looking at the notes, the terrain was going to be difficult to handle. I had written that the right turn had a severity of 3 (as 1 was a difficult, almost 90 degree turn), but that 50 metres later, we would be going over a jump and immediately coming out was a 5 right that tightened and became more like a 4 part way through that had a bank on the inside. I only had a matter of seconds to tell Sydney what she was up against including a hint to try and not cut the corner in an effort to save us from running into the bank. Unfortunately, she went into the bank a little too much and knocked us up on two wheels, but thankfully there was 200 metres until the next turn. She was able to get our other two wheels down and went into a more than 90 degree turn very sideways. After that, it was almost flat out to the finish.

This rally ended with a bang as close to the end of the last stage, we were coming into the crest of a hill flat out and the next corner was a 3 left while going over the crest. While going through, the car did a 360 spin after the tail end hit a light post. The car’s performance was impeded sufficiently for us to lose a podium position, but we were close enough to the finish that the mechanics there were able to buff out all the damage and set her back to the status she was in when we brought her in. Nevertheless, we had now taken our first steps into the world of motoring and was it amazing. If only we knew how much more hectic things would become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 1970s were the decade when the currently most beloved and iconic vehicles of days past (by the general petrolhead who cares not for innovation) were released and thus probably all the rage. As such, this was probably the best decade to start the modern era from. The Press-on-Regardless rally is a real event that is to my knowledge still being run today. The majority of the rest comes from rally rules and jargon as I know and the pace notes were inspired by the following set from the Wikipedia page explaining them in a way that doesn't make sense to me: 100 K left 2, 100 K right 2, 200 square left, 100 K right 4, 50 caution Jump into right 2 tightens, don't cut, 100 oversquare right, 400 flat to crest into K left 4, 100 finish. What I did to make more sense to me was reverse it to severity first, direction second and easy to hard from 1-6 to 6-1, every time removing the K as that is unimportant and turning "oversquare" into "square minus". I split the notes between the two written stages.


	12. Welcome to the Big Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now fully immersed in rally culture, James and Sydney take the next step, but disagree on the best way to do so. James, the older and more cautious one, is concerned about protecting the car. Sydney, on the other hand, thinks more carefree in a mentality that only victory in a mission or first place in a race is good enough, no matter the cost. James scolded her for this numerous times during their first few years, but he eventually learned to cope with what immaturity he could not teach her to conquer. She nevertheless was talented in behaving herself in the presence of someone important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me extremely long to write as I had to go to the lengths of learning the names of real people involved with Colin McRae around the 1998 World Rally season as again, I want the stories based on real events to not affect the direct outcome that actually happened. That being said, I'm now ready to more fully immerse James and Sydney in rallying, sort of, and can add one more IP to the current list:  
> Assassin’s Creed owned, created and developed by Ubisoft  
> Star Wars owned by Lucasfilm Ltd, created by George Lucas, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Co. and 20th Century Fox for Disney Enterprises Inc.  
> The Fake AH Crew and respective characters/logos are properties of Achievement Hunter, a subsidiary of Rooster Teeth Productions LLC.  
> Harry Potter created by J.K. Rowling and distributed by (books) Bloomsbury Publishing Co Ltd (movies) Warner Bros  
> The World Rally Championship owned and operated by the Federation for International Autosports  
> Colin McRae Rally/DiRT owned, created and developed by Codemasters

Continuing like that, our swapping of roles became me taking the wheel in events very legal and Sydney in those much less so. In an event that should be fatal, I already had a plan in place. The plan was to move to a new racing discipline after some time, not enough to keep cool our blood, but just enough for us to elude the public eye and return when we have been forgotten enough that a sudden reappearance was not questionable if it was noticed at all. This meant that if any new Assassin jobs required driving, we were sufficiently proven to receive the task and get it done. As for our Assassin skills, we kept practicing them during our down time when waiting for a call for the next happening. This, along with learning some other abilities and skills would be what we needed to keep our blood pumping.

One of these new skills that we wanted to develop was how to operate the Precursor rings and the futuristic swords that came with them. I was drawn to the idea when a trilogy of space opera films came to theatres under the name of Star Wars and the concept of what it called “the Force” reminded me of Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of my ring in that some things moved away from the ring and others moved closer. Similarly, the movies depicted that use of the Force could be used to call objects to the hand of the user. I pitched the idea to Sydney and she expanded on it so that not only will we train in how to emulate the Force as it was known at the time by controlling the power in the rings, but utilise abilities that would not make it into the fictional franchise itself for decades. 

Despite this, rallying seemed to be the only fully legitimate and legal motorsport that we could seamlessly work together on and make friends doing so. A group of these that we met in the late 90s was the Scottish born McRae family comprised of father Jimmy and brothers Alistair and Colin. Time showed that these lads would become the family that was most closely associated with rallying. Jimmy had already been crowned British Rally Champion on five occasions, the younger brother Alistair had in 1995 taken the same title and that very same year, the older brother Colin had clinched the Driver’s title in the World Rally Championship, consecutively helping the Prodrive Subaru team to their first Manufacturer’s title. 

Sydney suggested we introduce ourselves to the WRC under a eight rally contract with me driving under the same team. Seeing potential, the managing director of Prodrive, David Richards, agreed to let us on in the 1997 season of the British Rally Championship to prove we were ready for the World stage the next year. Until then, we practiced with the brothers at the rally school Colin looked after in his down time with sponsorships from local video game company Codemasters in return for letting the school appear in a rally game they were making. This area, despite having a Skoda as opposed to a Subaru to get comfortable with, did include a set of mud stages for us to get comfortable off the tarmac. With the new regulations, we were also allocated options for the mechanics to configure the car before testing the new set-up out.

Occasionally, Mr Richards would spectate our sessions on the practice stages and from what he saw, he was able to trust me to push the car just enough to do the best it can while being careful enough to avoid breaking it and Sydney to write the pace notes accordingly. As such, when the British Rally Championship began, he saw no reason to insist that I let off the throttle unless victory was assured and thus safety was the top priority. I had learned to trust his judgement from Colin. Dave had once sat in the co-driver’s seat of Ari Vatanen (someone Colin looked up to as a hero), navigating him to the 1981 World title and had never sat in a rally car since. I guess running a company like Prodrive does that to you. At least having a team like Subaru on the stage kept him close to them.

Without going into too much detail as my exact memory is fairly fuzzy, our first official rally made me so nervous that only on straightaways did I ever use sixth gear. This was likely to do with a sense of security generated by getting comfortable with the practice stages at the school, despite having been through the stage already from doing recce to give Sydney an opportunity to write pace notes. Getting into my stride, from rally to rally, I gained more confidence with the car and with rally driving in general, allowing myself to open the taps a little more while still keeping the car on the track. I use the term “track” loosely as the routes from Time Controls to stages were on open public roads and so, I had to behave myself behind the wheel. Stages were also on public roads, albeit, closed off.

Of course, that is what was going through my head. As for the championship itself, some rallies stayed in one country, others were all over the place. Because of my mind trying to ease itself into the sport from the driver's seat, I only gained so many points and only just missed the top 5, behind a Renault driven by a childhood friend of Colin’s, Robbie Head. As Subaru’s only representative that year, I had a lot riding on my shoulders and despite my performance, I showed an eventual grace under pressure, noted by Colin and prompting David to promote me to the World Rally team, confirmed to be driving the number 22 Impreza WRX built to WRC legal specifications on the Monte Carlo (1), Sweden (2), Corsica (6) Acropolis (Greece) (8), New Zealand (9), Australia (12) and United Kingdom (13) rallies. But that is only seven rallies when the original agreement was that eight would be attempted, I hear you ask. The original plan was to attempt Indonesia, before it was closed due to civil unrest (or so everyone has been told). As such, I opted to run a third rally back-to-back-to-back with Monte Carlo and Sweden, that being the Safari Rally in East Africa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I've said numerous times before, once 1977 rolls around for James and Sydney, they should be in a time when Star Wars has released and they begin training with their rings to emulate the Force. Now that time has happened and will come into effect once the story gets back into the mighty thick of it. In the first Colin McRae Rally game upon which the next story arc will be based, there is no mention of Jimmy, despite his reputation. And yet, players who race in "Novice" level vehicles will find Alistair as one of the drivers who has set your benchmark times. The game not being an official WRC licenced game, despite containing cars from the '98 season, could explain how I had to actively find the company responsible for a team, namely Prodrive for Subaru. That Colin watched over a rally school is a reference to how there was a rally school feature in the first game and that he voiced the instructor. The number 22 on James' Impreza is a reference to the STi built 22b, the last Limited Edition model of the 1st generation Impreza and finally, the numbers next to each rally James will partake in is what round of the '98 season that rally was, despite the ordering in the game being New Zealand, Acropolis, Monte Carlo, Australia, Sweden, Corsica, GB (not including Indonesia for reason already stated which in the game is 7th).
> 
> And now an announcement. I admit that I have no clear direction for how I want the plots for the rest of Colin McRae DiRT/WRC and the introduction/plot to all the other driving games on the list as I want that to be what bridges the gap between where we are and the introduction to San Andreas. As such, I want your help in setting the story so it can flow with the format I have already set. Leave in the comments you're suggestions and I will create a separate story (technically speaking) containing all the guidelines and rules for how I want each chapter to be.

**Author's Note:**

> When I first discovered this website and through it, the Organization, it immediately made me start to conceive an origin story for my character in Grand Theft Auto 5 Online with elements crossing over from Assassin's Creed explaining my personality. At first, I came up with the idea at the end of these notes but then asked myself "how can you fit in these other fandoms that you identify with?" This baffled me for some time until I came across the works credited as the parent or inspiration of this, based on the GTA Let’s Plays made by Achievement Hunter. I found within this alternate universe, the AH Immortals, the freedom for creativity enough to implement the IPs of Harry Potter, Star Wars and references to Bakugan and plot points in various driving games and real life events. The original concept was that my parent(s) were mortally wounded during the North Yankton incident and I was informed by either them or a friend of the family that they were retired Assassins who wanted their son trained should anything happen. During that time, I fall in love with a girl I worked closely with which would culminate in us dating which would be put on hold when I am ordered to establish a guild in San Andreas and build influence there but would resume when she in turn journeys there by plane. This is a reference to how I intended to make GTA content on YouTube. Get familiar with the game, establish myself across Los Santos and Blaine County with one character (designed to resemble the real me as much as possible even in that he's male) and when the time had come to start recording, make a new character (female for variety) and start from scratch so I could show everything from the beginning. With all that said, thank you for sticking around for this work. You are the driving force of my motivation to keep giving you content.


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